Solano County cold-case murder trial focuses on hair

In the trial for a Fairfield man charged with the 1996 cold case killing of his live-in girlfriend, testimony shifted toward forensic evidence that prosecutors believe helps prove he used his vehicle to dump the woman's body in a rural ditch, where she was later found dead.

Danna L. Dever was 34 years old when she went missing from the Cordelia home she shared with her longtime boyfriend, Lonnie J. Kerley, 52. On July 8, 1996, Dever's naked and beaten body, labeled Jane Doe No. 7, was found in a ditch by two farmworkers in a rural area near Highway 113 and Flannery Road.

In August 1996, Kerley told Fairfield police detectives that she left their home, and young daughter, nearly two months earlier, on June 14, 1996, in the early morning hours.

Dever's body would not be identified until 2007.

Her death was ruled a homicide and Kerley was charged in October 2010. While awaiting a preliminary hearing, a criminal grand jury issued its indictment last August. The indictment supersedes the preliminary hearing.

Prior testimony came from family members who testified to domestic violence incidents involving Kerley and Dever. On Tuesday, trial testimony focused on a single strand of hair.

At the time of Dever's disappearance, Kerley drove a 1972 Chevrolet Nova, which he sold to the relative of a co-worker in 1999, according to last year's voluminous grand jury transcript.

In 2009, when Solano County District Attorney's Office investigators reopened the cold case, the car was tracked down and state Department of Justice Senior Criminalist Josh Spatola was called in to help investigate. What Spatola came away with was a series of tape lifts, containing hairs found inside the car and its trunk.

Spatola testified on Tuesday that one of the hairs, found in the trunk, was consistent with pubic hair.

The hair then went to Mark Smith, a forensic expert at the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Smith testified that he analyzed the hair's mitochondrial DNA, and compared it to that of a known DNA sample taken from Kerley, the car's owner, and that of Dever.

Smith testified that he could rule everyone out as source of the hair except Dever. Further, Smith testified that he would not expect to see the genetic profile contained in the hair in more than .17 percent of the Caucasian population.

"Danna Dever cannot be excluded as a source for the hair," Smith testified.

Kerley's defense counsel, Deputy Public Defender Dawn Polvorosa, challenged the findings, minimizing its impact by addressing the difference between mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Because the DNA found in the hair was mitochondrial, as Smith testified, it is not unique to Dever, and would be shared by Dever's daughter, sisters and other family members.

"Other people that are maternally related cannot be excluded as a source," Smith testified.

The trial is set to continue at 9 a.m. today in the Vallejo courtroom of Judge Allan P. Carter. Kerley has pleaded not guilty and remains in Solano County Jail custody.